by David Ebenbach
Author David Ebenbach doesn’t like to spend too much time on worldbuilding. Instead, he prefers to give “just enough” detail about the world in which a given story takes place, and move onto writing his characters and their situations. Learn more about Ebenbach’s worldbuilding process below, and see how it plays out in “Everyone Needs a Conditions Box” from our [July/August issue, on sale now!]
Writing speculatively invites us—dares us—to imagine new worlds, and this challenge, depending on your interests as a writer, can feel anywhere from exciting or daunting to tedious. Building a world within the tight constraints of a short story, meanwhile, is another level of difficulty—or perhaps relief. That, too, depends on who you are as a writer. Me? For me, the short story is a relief.
I should admit, before I get any further into this, that worldbuilding isn’t my favorite thing. I don’t get as excited as some of my fellow authors about how alien languages might work or coming up with rules for magic or articulating the complex intertwined history of multiple warring factions. Usually I’m more interested in getting to the characters as quickly as possible, and staying with them. Rather than a few chapters dedicated to the most recent century’s proceedings of the elf legislature, or providing an extended description of the countryside and its various national borders, I want to jump right into a scene where my characters can talk to each other and get into conflict and possibly grow.
What that means is that I tend to give the reader just enough worldbuilding detail to get them grounded, and no more. Which is why the short story is a relief for me—its very shortness means I don’t have room to give more than I’m already inclined to give. If I want to deal with my characters and the situation they’re in, I can’t get too caught up in the intricacies of another species’ religious practices or hibernation patterns; I need to focus on the action and slip my readers background information on a need-to-know basis only.
But what constitutes “just enough”? Well, of course there isn’t just one answer to a question like that; some readers need (or at least want) more of the world, and others need (or want) less. But my goal is to give readers the minimum that will allow them to feel like they’re there in the scene and that they understand what’s going on.
Rather than a few chapters dedicated to the most recent century’s proceedings of the elf legislature, or providing an extended description of the countryside and its various national borders, I want to jump right into a scene where my characters can talk to each other and get into conflict and possibly grow.
Take my story “Everybody Needs a Conditions Box” from the July/August issue of Analog. This story is set on the clouds of Venus, which none of my readers have ever been to. (Between you and me, neither have I.) So I have some responsibility to ground the readers. Luckily, I can do that efficiently if I’m sparing and if I make sure that the worldbuilding is always doing a couple of things at once. For example, some of that building is also about establishing characters; when I briefly explain the AI running the mini-city, I’m introducing a character who will figure prominently in the story.
Other details I provide are meant to unsettle readers a bit and make them realize that they’re not at home. So, for instance, I talk about the interconnected domes that are floating on that cloud layer, and about the fact that a Venusian day is much, much, much longer than an Earth one (and so the people in the domes have to dim their windows at “night” to establish circadian rhythms). But I don’t go on at any length about the peculiarities; it doesn’t take a ton to unsettle folks.
At the same time, I need to help people find their footing amidst this strangeness. So I talk about a few things that might be familiar, like characters using sporks to pick through their Reuben sandwiches. I also describe the environment a bit, as in the explicitly shiny, silvery brain room or the big and airy dining room that has real plants in it, so that readers can get a sense of the scene. Again, it doesn’t take too much. A few good details imply the rest.
Other micro-worldbuilding does double-duty by supporting the themes of the story. Because I’m writing, to some extent, about the simultaneously wondrous and precarious nature of society (not just on that planet but also on our own), I need to explain that Venus, above the clouds, is bright and Earthlike in many physical respects (air pressure, temperature, gravity, etc.), and that under the clouds it’s astonishingly hellish in several different ways; if this city ever falls, it’ll be crushed and melted and dissolved very quickly. The physical setting is a bit symbolic in that way. Beyond these kinds of things, I try not to spend much time on the world around the characters; I tend to find that distracting and a barrier between me and the people I’m trying to get to know on the page. That includes when I’m writing novels—if you really want to get to know the surface of Mars in detail, or the elaborate technology involved in settling the planet, I’d recommend Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars over my own How to Mars—but, because we’re talking about a short story here, I don’t have much choice anyway. In short fiction, there isn’t really room for full-on worldbuilding. Worldhinting, maybe. And that’s plenty for me.
The Astounding Analog Companion 